Climatic suitability derived from species distribution models captures community responses to an extreme drought episode
Pérez Navarro, María Ángeles (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Sapes, Gerard (University of Montana)
Batllori, Enric (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Serra Díaz, Josep M. (Aarhus University)
Esteve Selma, Miguel Ángel (Universidad de Murcia)
Lloret Maya, Francisco (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)

Date:	2019
Abstract:	The differential responses of co-occurring species in rich communities to climate change-particularly to drought episodes-have been fairly unexplored. Species distribution models (SDMs) are used to assess changes in species suitability under environmental shifts, but whether they can portray population and community responses is largely undetermined, especially in relation to extreme events. Here we studied a shrubland community in SE Spain because this region constitutes an ecotone between the Mediterranean biome and subtropical arid areas, and it has recently suffered its driest hydrological year on record. We used four different modeling algorithms (Mahalanobis distance, GAM, BRT, and MAXENT) to estimate species' climatic suitability before (1950-2000) and during the extreme drought. For each SDM, we related species' climatic suitability with their remaining green canopy as a proxy for species resistance to drought. We consistently found a positive correlation between remaining green canopy and species' climatic suitability before the event. This relationship supports the hypothesis of a higher vulnerability of populations living closer to their species' limits of aridity tolerance. Contrastingly, climatic suitability during the drought did not correlate with remaining green canopy, likely because the exceptional episode led to almost zero suitability values. Overall, our approach highlights climatic niche modeling as a robust approach to standardizing and comparing the behavior of different co-occurring species facing strong climatic fluctuations. Although many processes contribute to resistance to climatic extremes, the results confirm the relevance of populations' position in the species' climatic niche for explaining sensitivity to climate change.
Grants:	Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte FPU14/03519 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2015-67419-R
Rights:	Tots els drets reservats.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Climatic suitability ; SDMs ; Extreme climatic events ; Drought resistance
Published in:	Ecosystems, Vol. 22, Issue 1 (January 2019) , p. 77-90, ISSN 1435-0629

DOI: 10.1007/s10021-018-0254-0

Postprint 37 p, 582.0 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles